Color Theory
1. The Visible Spectrum, Color Wheels,
and Hues
2. Subtractive color theory, including
•pigments
•primary (RYB), secondary and tertiary colors
3. Value
4. Color schemes
When light energy
travels through the air it
is invisible.
A prism can be used to
break apart this invisible
(white) light into a
continuous spectrum or
series of colors, which
artists call hues.
Hues are the colors of
the rainbow, made
visible by sending white
light through a prism.
A prism is a
transparent, polished
piece of glass or plastic
that slows down and
bends white light and
thus reveals the
spectral colors within
the light.
Color Wheel
Sir Isaac Newton, in 1709, was the first person to take the
spectrum of colors (hues produced by passing light through a
prism) and to arrange the spectrum into a circle or “color
wheel.”
This is Newton’s 1709 drawing of the color wheel.
Color Wheel
…and here is Newton’s wheel translated from Latin to English.
This is Newton’s 1709 drawing of the color wheel.
Newton was also responsible for dividing that spectrum into
seven hues. (Others color wheels show only five or six hues.)
He selected the number seven because wanted to make the
number of hues conform to other knowledge, specifically to
correspond to the number of days in the week, the number of
known planets in our solar system and the number of notes in
the musical major scale.
When you look at the spectrum at the right, how many hues
do you see?
American school children learn the order of colors on Newton’s color wheel
by memorizing the mnemonic memory aid “Roy G. Biv.” This will help you
remember the order of the colors in the rainbow/spectrum.
The most influential color theorists after Newton were
Albert H. Munsell and Johannes Itten.
Munsell’s wheel (on the right) describes just five
hues.
Itten’s wheel includes six main hues, and is the wheel
that we will be using for this assignment.
Johannes Itten’s color
wheel from 1961 includes
six named hues, red,
orange, yellow, green,
blue, and purple.
Albert H. Munsell’s color wheel from 1905 includes five main colors: yellow, green,
blue, purple, and red.
Subtractive Color Terms
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Pigments are…
Name one toxic pigment:
Why do we call colors used in painting “subtractive”?
Subtractive primaries are often abbreviated as…
One example of a subtractive secondary color would be…
One example of a subtractive tertiary color would be…
Pigments are coloring matter, one of the ingredients of paint.
Pigments
Pigments come from a variety of sources: plants, animals, the earth, and chemical laboratories.
For example, Yellow Ochre usually comes from clay that contains iron oxide.
Burnt Sienna comes from clay found outside of
Siena, Italy, which is then baked until it turns
dark.
Carmine, or cochineal, is a natural red colorant
made from crushed bugs that live on cactus.
Natural ultramarine blue is derived from a costly
semi-precious stone (lapis lazuli).
Natural ultramarine blue was so costly in the Middle Ages that
Christian artists, such as Simone Martini (on the left), used it
almost exclusively to depict the Virgin Mary: “Virgin Mary Blue.”
Pigments and your health…
Toxic pigments include those made with: lead,
arsenic, cadmium, chromium, manganese, and
mercury.
These include pigments sold with names such as
flake white, lead white, chrome yellow, cobalt
violet, emerald green, Paris green, cadmium red,
cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, viridian,
chrome oxide opaque, manganese blue,
manganese violet, burnt and raw umber, and
vermilion.
AP stands for Approved
Product. If you are working with
children, be sure to use only
ACMI certified approved
products.
Subtractive Color Terms
Color theory for artists who combine pigments is
called “subtractive” because every time you add one
pigment to another, your paint absorbs (or subtracts)
more and more light energy.
Apples only appear to be red because the skin
absorbs all of the other colors of the visible
spectrum. Only the red part of the visible
spectrum enters the eye. Red pigments behave
the same way.
Subtractive Color Theory
Since the early 20th century, most painting instructors
divided the color wheel into twelve evenly spaced
colors. Below is the wheel devised by the highly
influential Swiss art teacher Johannes Itten, in 1961.
How closely does Itten’s color wheel correspond to the
visible spectrum?
Subtractive primaries--RYB
Itten and other art teachers pointed out that almost all colors of paint could be produced by combining
just three pure pigments: red, yellow and blue (RYB). These three “primaries” cannot by created by
mixing together any other pigments. For this reason, subtractive primaries often abbreviated “RYB.”
Subtractive primaries: RYB
Secondary Colors
Each secondary color appears on the opposite side of Itten’s
color wheel from one of the primaries.
The three subtractive “secondary” colors
are created by combining two primaries.
Tertiary Colors
Subtractive “tertiary” colors can be created by combining
one primary and a neighboring secondary color (one of
the two secondary colors next door. Which tertiary color is
missing from this list, on the left?
In theory, combining all three subtractive primaries in equal
amounts would produce black, because they would absorb
all of the light energy. In practice, it produces a muddy
brown. For that reason, we are providing you with black and
white paint.
Subtractive Color Theory
Review: Subtractive Color Theory
• Pigments are… coloring matter, one of the ingredients found in paint.
• Name one toxic pigment: lead white.
• Why do we call colors used in painting “subtractive”? Because
when you add one pigment to another the combination absorbs or subtracts more light
energy than each pigment on its own.
• Subtractive primaries often abbreviated as…RYB
• One example of a subtractive secondary color would be…
orange, made by combining the primary colors red and yellow.
• One example of a subtractive tertiary color would be… redorange, made by combining a primary color (red) and one of its neighboring secondary
colors (orange).
Value and complementary colors
• The term “value” is interchangeable with what other two
terms?
• What are tints and shades?
• A complementary color can be found…
In addition to hues, colors can be described in
terms of their:
Value = Tone = Grayscale
The range of colors from white to gray to black has traditionally been referred to as a value scale or tonal scale. More
recently, with the advent of the computer, the term grayscale has become more common.
Photographers who use black and white
film tend to describe their works in terms of
tone.
The terms tone, value and grayscale are
interchangeable.
Berenice Abbott, Pennsylvania Station, New York, 1930s
Painters tend to use the word “value” to describe how light or dark a color is.
Claude Monet, Grain Stacks, 1890-91
Digital artists tend to use the word “grayscale” to describe how light or dark a color is.
White added to a
hue is called a
tint. (Pink is a
tint of red.)
Black added to a
hue is called a
shade. (Navy is
a shade of blue.)
Complementary colors are colors that appear
opposite each other on the color wheel. In theory, any
pair of complementary colors can be combined to
produce black. In this way, they complete each other.
Complementary schemes tend to produce vibrant
holiday decorations.
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
Complementary schemes also tend to produce
vibrant works of art.
Review: value and saturation
• The term “value” is interchangeable with what other two
terms? Tone and grayscale.
• What are tints and shades? Tints are hues with white added. Shades are
hues with black added.
• A complementary color can be found… The complement of any color
can be found on the opposite side of the color wheel from that color.
5. Color Schemes
•Monochromatic means…
•Analogous scheme means…
•Examples of warm colors are…
•Examples of cool colors are…
•Warm and cool colors tend to create the illusion of
depth behind the picture plane because…
•Triad scheme means…
Color Schemes
Monochromatic schemes include
variations on a single hue. The hue might
vary by value (and/or saturation).
Ad Reinhardt, Painting, 1954
Analogous schemes include colors next to each
other on the color wheel. On the wheel below are
two analogous schemes. On the left side of the
wheel is an analogous scheme composed of
yellow, yellow-orange, and orange. What about
on the right side of the wheel? Which analogous
colors appear in O’Keeffe’s painting?
Georgia O’Keeffe, Black Calla Lily, c. 1930
The two analogous schemes on this wheel also represent two
major categories of colors known as warm and cool colors.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the first color theorist to
describe certain colors as warm and other colors as cool, in
1810.
Warm colors are associated with fire and fall leaves, such as
red, orange and yellow. Cool colors are associated with water
and ice, such as blue, blue-green and blue-purple.
Products packaged with warm color attract shoppers--by seeming to advance toward them. Some of the
most successful package designs feature warm colors.
Because warm colors seem to advance toward the viewer and cool colors seem to recede away,
painters have placed them near each otgher in order to create the illusion of depth on the picture plane.
Antoine Watteau, Return from Cythera, 1717
Triad schemes—often used by interior designers—
include three colors equally distant from each other on
the color wheel. Which colors are in these two triad
schemes: on the wheel and in the room?
The subtractive primary colors on Itten’s
color wheel create a triad scheme.
Review: Color Schemes
•Monochromatic means… a design includes just one hue.
•Analogous scheme means…a design features colors next to
each other on the color wheel.
•Triad scheme means… a design is limited to three colors equally
distant from each other on the color wheel.
•Examples of warm colors are… red, orange and yellow and redpurple.
•Examples of cool colors are… green, blue and blue-purple.
•Warm and cool colors tend to create the illusion of depth behind
the picture plane because… warm colors seem to advance
toward the viewer while cool colors recede away from the viewer.
Color Theory
1. The Visible Spectrum and Hues
2. Subtractive color theory, including
•pigments
•primary (RYB), secondary and tertiary colors
3. Value
4. Color schemes